Colorado River (Texas)
View to Lake Austin from Mount Bonnell, a part of the Colorado River
Catchment area of the Colorado River
The Colorado River is about 1380 km the longest river in the U.S. state of Texas and the 18th - longest in the United States.
It rises on the Llano Estacado, flows including through Austin and opens via the Matagorda Bay in the Gulf of Mexico. The river has a catchment area of about 103,000 km ², which extends into the neighboring Federal State of New Mexico.
Name interpretation and history
Historians agree that the Colorado River was designated in Native American Caddo language as Kanahatino; also Pashohono was the name of the river, but in the use of other resident Indian tribes and languages .
The Colorado River is considered - in addition to the South Llano River - as a candidate for the San Clemente said river where the Spanish explorer Juan Domínguez de Mendoza and Nicolás López in 1684 stayed for six weeks.
Another name was also found with La Sablonnière ( " sand pit " ) again, who came from the French explorer René- Robert Cavelier in 1687.
The name Colorado, the Spanish term for " red " is, according to historians, a misnomer, as the water of the river have never owned a rottrübe coloring, and always resulted in clear water with it. It is unanimously accepted by the researchers that the Spanish explorer Alonso De León in 1690 first used the term Colorado for the current. But there are signs that underpin the theory that was originally meant by the Colorado River of the Brazos River; hence the term over the course of the Spanish exploration in this area, suggesting a confusion of the two rivers named Colorado.
After the Civil War, the Colorado River was crucial for the freight promotion.
River level
Initially circulated by the Colorado River, the prairie region near San Saba County, to then reach the Llano basin with its rocky mountains. Finally, the Colorado River flows through a number of canyons before it, from the Balcones Fault Coming, come around to Austin. Before Austin, the landscape is dominated by hilly canyons, to Austin, however, the river crosses the shallow alluvial deposits of the coastal plain and you, for this area, agriculturally important growing area.
Most important tributaries of the Colorado River are:
- Pedernales River
- Llano River
- San Saba River
- Concho River
- Pecan Bayou
With the exception of Pecan Bayou, these tributaries source Fed and open in the region of the Edwards Plateau in the Colorado River.
Although the Colorado River has a low annual water flow rate in relation to the catchment area, he has already taken care of some of the worst flooding the country in Texas. Due to the low flow of the river were formed in the early 19th century, by Verklausungen upstream increasingly more and more floods, so in 1839 the river was beschiffbar inland from its mouth of only 15 kilometers.
Particularly affected by this were Wharton County, and Matagorda County.
The current Caney Creek channel was about 1000 years ago already has a primitive and natural channel of the river before it was split into an estuary in current Caney Creek area and the river flow extended to the west.
Due to the need for a constant flow of water for irrigation of the great rice plantations in Wharton County, and Matagorda County combined with the water control by reservoirs and dams have been built with new challenges.
Main villages on the Colorado River
- Austin, the capital of Texas
- Lamesa
- Colorado City
- Robert Lee
- Ballinger
- Paint Rock
- Marble Falls
- Bastrop
- Smithville
- La Grange
- Columbus
- Wharton
- Bay City
Reservoirs in the river
The main reservoir on the Colorado River are:
- Lake Colorado City
- Lake JB Thomas
- Lake Buchanan
- Inks Lake
- Lake Marble Falls
- Lake Lyndon B. Johnson
- Lake Travis
- Town Lake Austin